


end credits

by Verbyna



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Anxiety Disorder, Coming Out, Dysfunctional Relationships, Kent "everything I've ever let go of had claw marks on it" Parson, M/M, Parson family, Press and Tabloids, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 21:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7191620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kent thinks, <i>they’ll end the movie here.</i></p><p>The story, of course, goes on.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> i brought my fandom to work last night to cope with the tragic, senseless events in our community. wherever you are, reader, i hope you are safe and loved.

Kent tells a couple of people he turned down the role, and two days later, it’s all over the internet: KENT PARSON TURNS DOWN CHANCE TO REUNITE ON SET WITH JACK ZIMMERMANN.

He was drunk. He was drunk, and he panicked, because he’d fought so hard to have Jack considered for the part, but he hasn’t talked to Jack in years. He and Jack have never read for the film together. Who the fuck knows how he’ll react to being in a room with Jack again.

He fires his PR team.

 

*

 

Kent’s manager shows him Jack’s audition tape, all casual, like she hasn’t threatened to quit over the “Zimmermann situation” for most of the previous year.

Kent makes it through watching just fine. He even takes some notes on his phone. But it’s not real; it doesn’t tell him anything. Jack alone with him and Jack acting for a camera are different people.

His mother listens to all this on the phone, and when he’s done talking, she’s quiet for a long, long time. Then she asks, “Which Jack do you miss?”

 

*

 

Ten years ago, they promised each other they’d get out of the business when the teen hockey trilogy was done. Funny how Kent actually meant it, how he meant it up until he won his Oscar at twenty, and Jack went to film school instead of walking away. 

Funny how much Jack hated being mentioned in Kent’s acceptance speech. All Kent did was thank Jack for the broken heart that got people to take him seriously. No one understood what he’d meant except Jack, but even that had been too much.

No one cared much about the first part of his speech, anyway.

 

*

 

Larissa is the only person who bothered to get to know both Jack and Kent as adults. Kent pushed for her to be the production designer’s assistant out of self-preservation.

He’s very grateful for it when she comes in with Jack at the first read-through and seats him two chairs down from Kent at the table before bowing out to confer with the 1st AD in the hallway.

Jack works out when he’s stressed, and he’s _ripped_ right now; he has a tan, his eyes look so light they’re almost white, his stupid hair is still stupid, and god, Kent wants to tell him everything. He wants to lie down with Jack in the dark somewhere and spill his guts.

They break each other open. It was so great at first, when they were both so lonely - but they kept the honesty when the kindness ran out, when Jack started using and Kent started to fuck around on him.

Kent doesn’t look up from his script all day. He staggers up when they’re done and gets out of the room as fast as he can, promises Larissa they’d catch up later, and drives away from the production office like he’s on fire.

 

*

 

He drops off his cat with the legendary actor who plays his mentor in the Marvel films.

“Do you want to--?” the guy asks, and Kent says, “Yes,” and he gets to LAX with twin bruises on his hipbones, low enough that Wardrobe won’t see them at fittings.

He only sleeps with professionals. He’s been acting since he was two; he doesn’t know any other kinds of people.

 

*

 

“Do you want to talk?” Kent asks Jack during a fitting, a week before shooting starts.

They’re in a conference room at the director’s hotel. Jack’s manager Georgia is on the phone, but she’s watching them like a hawk. No one else is paying attention right now, arguing over the importance of plaid for character development or whatever the fuck. Kent stopped listening twenty minutes ago because Jack is _right there_ , close enough to hear him, not acting, and if he’d just--

“There’s nothing to say,” Jack mumbles without looking at Kent.

“Are you scared of me?” Kent asks inanely. A dare, if he can’t have the truth.

Jack just turns away fully and starts to rifle though the forty goddamn plaid shirts he had to try on. Georgia catches Kent’s eye and frowns at him. It’s so fucking unfair that he flushes with it; they’ve both known her since they were sixteen, so why is Kent always the bad guy?

Why does everyone who knew them before act like Kent’s feelings are hurting Jack, not Kent? He’s not made of stone.

 

*

 

Kent doesn’t remember falling in love, but he remembers the exact moment when he realized what was going on. He remembers how his heart stopped, then hammered, and the feeling of cold moisture on his hands, the numbness in his face. He knows he smiled, because he watched the interview later. It was on live TV.

Jack was sitting on the couch next to him, sweating through the same makeup. The audience was hidden behind a wall of stage lights and cameras. It was a Thursday night, around 10, and the host had asked what dating is like when they’re on set or on a promo tour most of the year.

Kent first thought was, _I can’t ask him out, because--_

Later, when he was figuring out whether he wanted to come out, a therapist told him that it sounded like he’d gone into shock.

Jack laughed that night. His new meds had just started to work, so the anxiety was low enough that he laughed during interviews for a few weeks. He said, “I’ll let you know if I meet someone I want to date.”

The host turned to Kent, who just smiled and smiled.

That was the moment he thought of when he ended his Academy acceptance speech with, “As a gay actor, it has been an honor to be part of such an honest project. We’re here. We exist, and we should tell our stories.”

In the split second before he opened his mouth and leaned closer to the stage microphone, he thought, _will it be another twenty years before anyone knows what it was like to think my life was over?_

The answer, of course, is yes. It’s not just his story. It’s not just his life at stake.

 

*

 

Kelly calls him a week into the shoot to ask how he’s doing.

“Fine,” he says, since his sister can’t read his face all the way from Montreal.

“Liar. I got a call from Larissa this morning. Apparently you look like, and I quote, shit on a stick. Have you talked to anyone?”

Kent gingerly lowers himself onto the couch in his trailer and, just as gingerly, knocks his head back against it. He’d completely forgotten that Larissa and Kelly met at his Captain America-themed birthday-slash-4th of July party, but of course they exchanged numbers. Mocking him is a great icebreaker.

“I’m talking to you,” he says, resigned. She hums in approval.

“What’s up, kid?”

He closes his eyes and takes a couple of big breaths, slow on the exhale. “If I tell you something, promise not to get mad?”

Kelly snorts. “No, obviously.” She pauses, waiting for him to say something, then sighs. “Tell me anyway. Unless you started fucking Zimmermann again, it can’t be that bad.”

“Um.”

“Kent! Tell me you didn’t, or I swear to god--”

“Hey, no, Kelly. I didn’t. I wouldn’t.” Kelly and her wife took him in when he was stuck in Montreal, fucked up over Jack’s OD. She’s been worrying over this for _years._

“So what is it? Spill.”

“Right. So, um. You know how Jack hasn’t done anything major since the hockey films?”

“Rehab, film school, everyone knows this.” He shuts up, waiting for it to click, and he can hear her sharp inhale when it does. “ _Kenny._ Baby, why would you do this to yourself?”

Kent’s throat closes up. “I had to,” he chokes out.

He heaves himself upright and then bends to put his head between his knees. He doesn’t think he’ll cry, but Jack’s been looking through him, and he thought it would all work out. He really did. He’s a fucking idiot.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Kelly’s saying in her mom voice. “Shh, take a minute,” and Kent misses her and Caroline and his nieces so much that it physically hurts. He misses his mom, his childhood bed in Jersey, his cat, everything warm and safe that he gave up for his job.

“He won’t talk to me. How can I keep this up for the next eight months if he can’t even talk to me? I just want to know if--”

“If you’re the only one,” Kelly finishes. Her voice grows hard. “He’s only getting this shot because he didn’t have the guts to face you for fucking years, and you know what? I don’t even care if he loves you at this point. Sit him down and make him talk or I will fly down there and break his famous fucking nose.”

“Jesus, Kels.”

“I’m serious, Kenny,” she says, and he knows she is. “His own parents couldn’t do what you did for him. The least he owes you is a goddamn conversation.”

 

*

 

 _We exist, and we should tell our stories._

He’d looked out at all those important people, at his peers and employers and colleagues, at men he’d fucked in literal closets on shoots, married men and religious men and scared men, at the few people who were out and might talk to him if they knew what he was. Who might help him.

They played the end of his speech at an equal marriage rally in LA, but he lost at least three parts because of it, and he still doesn’t know how he managed to get the Marvel role. They wouldn’t have touched him if he didn’t have an Oscar to his name, probably.

It was worth it. It still is. But he’d been so sad when he came out, so fucking lonely and invisible even on that stage, that he hadn’t thought about the consequences. He was talking to his sixteen-year-old self, who went into shock on national TV when he realized he was in love with a boy. He’d meant, _the story isn’t over yet. Hold on._

He’s here, and god help him, he needs to know how the story ends.

 

*

 

Jack’s latest excuse for avoiding Kent when they don’t have a scene together is avoiding the behind-the-scenes crew. Kent is by far the biggest name on set, other than the director; they’re on him like fucking papparazzi outside a club. He jokes around with them, plays up the funny bro persona he’s been perfecting since before Jack turned it into a mask, but it’s pissing him off to see Jack slinking off all the time.

He loses the last of his patience after a grueling thirteen-hour outdoor shoot. It’s 3am, he did shots with Larissa and the DOP before he was herded into the van, and there Jack is, freshly scrubbed, staring blankly at him over the headrests.

“Joe, we need a minute,” Kent tells the driver without turning around.

“We should--” Jack starts, but Kent shakes his head slowly, and Jack doesn’t finish. Joe steps out, Kent gets in, and silence descends. He takes the opportunity to study Jack’s face.

This is the guy who made Kent the actor he is today. This is the guy who held Kent’s hand when his dog got sick, who kissed him under the covers when Kent’s dad came after his money right before his eighteenth birthday. They walked a hundred red carpets together, got drunk together, been on magazine covers, trained together, ran from each other and back to each other, made each other famous and miserable.

Jack looks like everything Kent ever wanted, but Kent has so much more now.

“Why did you take the part?” he asks Jack.

“I missed it,” Jack whispers. “Someone told me - someone said I’d never be happy anywhere else.”

“Who was it?”

Jack shakes his head jerkily. “No one you know.”

Kent boils over.

“And you took it even though it was with me? Even if you knew I was trying to work with you, you in particular, burning all my fucking bridges to - and you won’t fucking give me the time of day?”

Jack’s face drains of color. “What do you mean you burned your bridges?”

Kent smiles at him. It’s his sister’s smile, his mother’s smile, and the coldness sits strange on him, but he finally gets it. Anger comes before acceptance. Anger is what gets you through.

“I blackmailed one of the producers,” he tells Jack. “Said I’d tell his wife what we did. What, you thought they’d bring in some random film student for the nostalgia value? Please. Oh, and I hope your parents are proud, because they sure as fuck weren’t helpful. Larissa told me you’ve been asking them for scripts since last summer. I gave you this one on a platter.”

Jack curls in on himself, little by little.

“Kenny, why would you--”

“Because I fucking missed you, asshole!” Kent shouts.

Jack crumples. “We were so fucking bad for each other. I got out,” he says quietly. “I hoped you wouldn’t care.”

“You left me,” Kent sums up. “Without saying it to my face. Left me to deal with the fallout, and when I was so pathetic that I thanked you for leaving me in the shit, you got pissed at me for, what? You being a coward? Me still being in your corner?”

“It was too much,” Jack says honestly. He straightens up, like saying it took a weight off. “I just wanted to go home.”

Kent heard that tone from himself only once, on a stage: _we’re here._ It cuts right through the anger, and suddenly it’s _Jack_ in front of him, brilliant fucked up Jack, who was a friend before anything else. His best and worst friend, who’s been trying to get better.

“I know. God, Zimms, I know.” He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. The darkness is nice, so he leans his arms on the back of an armrest and hides his face in them.

“Why did you come out?” Jack asks him, like he genuinely wants to know. Last time he asked, he was screaming.

“Because I was in love with my best friend. It was easier than the whole truth, I guess.” He plays back the conversation, then lifts his head and lets Jack see his wry smile. “Who knew you’d be happier here than in school?”

“Eric. He’s my - he’s my boyfriend. From school.”

When Kent’s smile flickers, but stays in place, Jack returns it tentatively. They’ve been through too much for him not to.

“He was right,” Kent says. “You’re so fucking good at this when you’re not letting the bullshit get to you.”

“High praise from an Academy Award winner.”

“Shit, you’re right. I shouldn’t associate with the plebe. Oh wait, golden boy, you had six Oscars at home--”

“Fuck off, Kenny,” Jack says automatically, and Kent laughs, and it feels like the first full breath he’s taken since he was a kid.

He knocks on the window to call the driver back. Before Joe opens the door, Jack reaches over and squeezes Kent’s shoulder.

They ride back to town in silence, looking out their own windows, but it’s a different sort of silence than the heavy cloud that followed them around for so long. Kent thinks, _they’ll end the movie here._

The story, of course, goes on.


End file.
